October 10, 2004

The Davis-Holland/Lovin' Arms combo is supposed to be one of the best rock routes in all of Washington. Accordingly I was psyched when Eric suggested that we go check it out (we even hoped to finish the route early and then do another, MORE difficult 6-pitch route in the same day, but that will need to be a future project).  We departed Seattle at 7am, hiked the approach, and got to the base of our route by 8:30am.

The wall was soaking wet, with a full-on waterfall pouring down the upper wall at one section! Moreover, the valley was filled with thick fog. We considered hiking back to the car and driving on to climb at Leavenworth, which is typically much drier than Index. But that would be a lot of hiking and driving, so we stayed put and waited a few hours for the fog to clear.

In the meantime, we walked around to check out some other upper wall routes. We found many appealing lines that must be climbed in the near future. Here is one such pitch, Dana's Arch (5.11a--and bolt protected!)

Eventually the sun came out, and the rock became reasonably dry. We started up around noon.

The first pitch hand/fist crack (5.9) was pretty wet. Here I'm drying my shoe off after slotting a footjam:

Eric starts up the spectacular corner of pitch 2 (5.10a), which was thankfully dry.

Eric follows pitch 3 (5.10b). We started with an exciting 5.10a friction variation, then headed up through a wet chimney. Thin moves past a corner led to this easy ramp and the belay.

Looking up at the first pitch of Lovin' Arms (5.10b and p4 of the linkup). As you can see, it looks sort of mossy and chossy.

Eric searches for holds. The moves off the belay were pretty difficult, and they remained difficult and insecure.

Eric at the top of the pitch. Moss everywhere, but there was some fun stemming to be had.

Eric traverses off the belay on p5 (5.10c A0, or 5.11b)

Eric belays at the base of the beautiful headwall.

Eric follows the fun, steep, juggy final pitch (p6, 5.9).

Sunset over Merchant Peak et al. as we rappel off.